Solar Field, Waste Transfer & Recycling in West Nyack

Our local landfill was all full over 20 years ago. The mountains of garbage have been covered with sheets of plastic, soil, and grass. It now has 8,744 solar panels installed on 13 acres of the mountains of trash.

Solid Waste Inspector, Denis O’Donnell, was kind enough to grant me an interview and give me a tour in December 2014.

The solar panels keep 2,030 metric tons of carbon dioxide from going into the air each year! The panels make electricity from the sun’s rays, so power stations don’t have to burn coal to make the electricity. The panels produce more than 2.9 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year. That means A LOT of dirty coal is NOT polluting our air. Our county utility company pays the Clarkstown government money for the electricity it produces.

The town also composts leaves that they collect from businesses and homes. Can you see the MOUNTAINS of leaves and gardening debris?!

We drove by 12,000 tons of composting leaves! When sufficiently broken down, Solid Waste Management gives 10% to the town free of charge. The rest they sell to private nurseries. Gardeners put it in gardens to enrich the soil, so it goes back to helping the earth. Isn’t that great idea?!

Solid Waste Management also recycles glass and cement. They are broken into fragments to fill in roadways. This has saved the town millions of dollars annually.

Here are fragments from cement blocks that are now ready to be used under roads.

Here the concrete has been broken into even smaller fragments.

Residential and commercial trash that has not been put into recycling bins gets picked up by the trash trucks. It’s taken to the transfer station you see here in the background.

The trash is loaded into these large trucks and trucked a few hundred miles to an upstate landfill. What happens when THAT’S full?

* When we throw things in the trash, it costs the town money, AND we’re running out of space to dump all our trash.

* When we recycle, the town makes money to pay for town expenses – that helps all of us. Doesn’t it make sense to recycle?!?

Just look at all of those beautiful-looking solar panels! 8,744 of them!!!

My dad lives near the solar field and I knew what the solar field was but the place where they had the cement blocks that are going to be used in the road always puzzled as to why it was. Now after reading this, I know what it is. I think that it’s amazing that this solar field and waste transfer he saved the town millions of dollars.

Wow, I didn’t know that solar panels can stop so much carbon dioxide from going into the air and make 2.9 million kilowatt hours of electricity! THey are really doing a lot to slow down climate change at the solar field in west nyack.

I think that the solar panels put over the garbage are a great idea to help reduce global warming and that our county recycles so many things. I hope we can stop throwing out things that can be recycled I can’t wait to see the recycling center.

I think it’s great that the solid waste management recycles cement, and glass. It is also really good that they put solar panels over the garbage to help reduce a ton of air pollution and will help slow down climate change. I think that the solar panels will definitely help solve our pollution problem. The solid waste management had a great idea that will reduce so much of our pollution. I think every dump should start doing this, or at least most, and if they do, I think there would be great results.